@error laws should have an expiration time, maybe a long one, but they should have. because lawmakers never stop to delete these old bad laws.

they should have to vote it all again from time to time. even if it was once each 50 years it would get rid of a lot of shit

There are enough non-controversial laws that are fundamental to the well-being of society that this could be catastrophic.

When a law prohibiting murder, or rape, or theft, or a law laying out fundamental taxation authority (necessary for the smooth functioning of government services, no matter how much we may dislike the mechanism) is about to expire, or authorizing essential services, just watch as extreme Republicrats (the current minority party) hold the reauthorization hostage to force ideological concessions from the in-power Democans.

Does anyone really want that, particularly considering that there are most likely enough essential laws of this kind that you could have a standoff like this every single year, perhaps multiple times per year?

@candlejack1 failing to renew the patriot act would be far less disastrous than failing to renew certain other laws.

You have to remember that our government has actually shut down in recent pass because Congress is too stonewalled to pass budgets... you know, the thing that says "can we spend money? YES WE CAN SPEND MONEY. WHOO HOO!"

Having them forget, or just be unable, to renew an expiring law is a legitimate possibility and I don't want any really important laws to have expiration dates.

The problem with eliminating authority is that you can't, really. A power vacuum never lasts long, and if you don't put into place some mutually agreeable system, and enforce it, you'll get de facto dictatorships instead.

The problem with eliminating authority is that you can't, really. A power vacuum never lasts long, and if you don't put into place some mutually agreeable system, and enforce it, you'll get de facto dictatorships instead.

Precisely. This is the thing that libertarians always (willfully?) fail to understand: power exists objectively. It derives from resources of various kinds, the most important being population and natural resources. Within a given region, there exists a certain amount of power, and it is human nature to organize that power hierarchically into a generally pyramid-shaped structure.

Look at any social organization, whether it be a family, a business, a government, a religion, or a club, and once it gets beyond a very few members, structure will emerge naturally, with the majority of power accruing to the few at the top of the hierarchy. Given the way this keeps happening across time and cultures, and given the way that organizations that intentionally attempt to subvert this by refusing to organize tend to fail spectacularly, (OWS is a clear example,) it's not at all unfair to call it the great pattern of human nature.

And this is where libertarian philosophy really runs into problems. Power exists objectively, and it naturally accrues to those at the top. Disrupt the power at the top, and it does not magically vanish, dissipating into happy sparkles, rainbows, and more liberty for everyone. What actually happens is, it produces a power vacuum, which is an ugly situation for everyone involved while it's going on, and then at the end, (once it ends by someone managing to seize and consolidate power,) what you end up with is someone new at the top who got there by seizing power, someone with the mindset of a conqueror. In the vast majority of cases, this ends up being worse for most people within the system than before the original power structure was disrupted.

When you get down to it, the only way to have a small government with a small amount of power is to have a small nation with a small amount of resources. And this is why libertarians scare me. There are really only two classes of people who would call for wide-scale reduction of power at the top: those who don't understand about power vacuums, and those who do and wish to take advantage of them. It's hard to say which is worse.

There are enough non-controversial laws that are fundamental to the well-being of society that this could be catastrophic.

That's why people have suggested variations like "the total number of laws may only be x" or "only x many pages of laws", which basically means you've got to get rid of one law if you want to add a new one.

The Moon Is A Harsh Mistress mentioned the idea of a House of Repeal, whose business would solely be to consider repealing laws; a 25% vote would be sufficient.

hold the reauthorization hostage to force ideological concessions from the in-power

"All laws must be simple enough to fit on one sheet of paper" and/or "a law may only have one topic" might put paid to that idea, because it eliminates the common way that's done, which is to add an unrelated rider or amendment to "must-pass" legislation.

You have to remember that our government has actually shut down in recent pass because Congress is too stonewalled to pass budgets

Actually, about 85-90% of the government has been deemed "critical", such that it continues even if there's no funding, under the assumption that scheduled allocations like salaries and whatnot will automatically be caught up with later. So the "government shutdowns" of the last few years actually only affected 10% or so of the government.

And of course, in those cases, the various Federal agencies were instructed to go out of their way to impose the Washington Monument defense and make things difficult for the citizenry; for example, by putting up barricades around untended national monuments like the WWII one, which is in the middle of a park with no walls around it, but the government, which was supposedly 'shut down', somehow managed to set up barricades and a police presence to keep people from crossing them.

hold the reauthorization hostage to force ideological concessions from the in-power

"All laws must be simple enough to fit on one sheet of paper" and/or "a law may only have one topic" might put paid to that idea, because it eliminates the common way that's done, which is to add an unrelated rider or amendment to "must-pass" legislation.

"The secretary shall..."

Until you get rid of the mess of delegated power that we have, all you'll have done is transfer even more power into unelected bureaucrats.